Shooting victim just out of prison

LORAIN — Eight days after getting out of a maximum security prison, Gary Young Jr.’s life ended following an apparent case of road rage. Young, 27, was shot and killed Thursday at the corner of Elyria Avenue and East 32nd Street. He had just left Mansfield Correctional Institution on July 18 after serving three years for rape, robbery, aggravated robbery and felonious assault. Lorain Police Sgt. Mark Carpentiere said that about 4:40 p.m. a pickup containing Young and three friends stopped at Elyria Avenue and East 32nd Street. The occupants in the truck began yelling at two men who were crossing Elyria Avenue on foot, shouting that they didn’t have permission to walk in that area. More words were exchanged, and the men in the truck jumped out. Young was fatally shot during the ensuing brawl, Carpentiere said. “It was like a road-rage thing, except the other two were walking,” he said. Lamont Tarpley, 25, who was one of the men crossing Elyria Avenue, was charged with murder, felonious assault, receiving stolen property and carrying a concealed weapon, and more charges are possible, Carpentiere said. Tarpley, who has past drug charges but no known convictions, was being held in the county jail on $1 million bond following his arraignment Friday. Several witnesses to the shooting gave police a description of Tarpley, who was picked up shortly after police arrived on Caroline Avenue just three blocks from where the incident occurred. A .38-caliber Smith and Wesson, which was later found to have been reported stolen, was found in his left front pants pocket, police said. Witnesses who called 911 said a man resembling Tarpley ran into a house before coming back and waving a gun. Tarpley lives a few houses from where the shooting occurred. An Elyria Avenue resident said she saw a man resembling Tarpley shoot Young after Young tried to take a swing at him. “One white guy came up to a big black guy and tried to hit him, and I seen him take a gun out and then I heard it pop twice,” she said. No one else has been charged in connection with the shooting. Police have spoken to the other man who was walking with Tarpley when the shooting occurred, Carpen-tiere said. Contact Adam Wright at 329-7151 or awright@chroniclet.com.